What SEO tools do you use? (Photo: Cellular Immunity)

It’s important for a website owner to know how their site is doing with SEO and visitors. If you read SEO blogs on a regular basis, you have probably encountered some posts about free SEO reporting tools quite often. I have selected 5 of what I think are most useful SEO online reporting tools on the web. I created this list as a resource that people can go to learn or to make sure they are doing it right.

5 Free SEO Reporting Tools is a post from: Technshare

Stay ahead of your competition (Photo: davedehetre)

Search Engine Optimization is an old term that has evolved a huge amount over the last decade.  Making a site both user and search engine friendly can be difficult, but keeping up with what actually works can be even harder.

Not that long ago SEO used to focus simply on backlinks and on-page optimization these simpler times are now long gone however, backlinks are loaded with metrics to determine their value, and social interaction can play a role in the value of your content, not just your online appearance.

The good news is that there are three relatively unused sources of information which can help keep you up to date with the latest SEO knowledge.  Keeping up to date not only means that you can stay ahead of Google, but it also means you can stay one step ahead of your competitors.  If you get fresh search engine information quickly you can often beat your competitors easily in the rankings if you update quickly.

Three Tips to Stay Knowledgeable on SEO

Search Engine Optimization is an old term that has evolved a huge amount over the last decade.  Making a site both user and search engine friendly can be difficult, but keeping up with what actually works can be even harder.

Not that long ago SEO used to focus simply on backlinks and on-page optimization these simpler times are now long gone however, backlinks are loaded with metrics to determine their value, and social interaction can play a role in the value of your content, not just your online appearance.

The good news is that there are three relatively unused sources of information which can help keep you up to date with the latest SEO knowledge.  Keeping up to date not only means that you can stay ahead of Google, but it also means you can stay one step ahead of your competitors.  If you get fresh search engine information quickly you can often beat your competitors easily in the rankings if you update quickly.

Google Webmaster Blog

The first thing you really need to follow is the Google Webmaster Blog.  Google will never tell you everything they do, but occasionally they will let slip about some ranking factors which may help you optimize your site just a little bit more than everyone else. Google Webmaster Blog is an official Google resource, which means you don’t have to worry about the usual swathes of misinformation that permeate many SEO websites. A good example will be the lowered impact of backlinks that have matching anchor text and title tags.  Small snippets of information like this can give you a huge advantage.

Usenet

The second tip is a little unusual.  Usenet is a great place to find up-to-date information on SEO.  Despite the age of Usenet, over ten years older than the World Wide Web, it is still going strong, and is heavily used by some of the most tech savvy internet professionals, including the best Internet Marketers.

Doing a Usenet search is not always easy, but using one of the best Usenet provider services can vastly simplify the process with an all-in-one Usenet search and newsgroup reader application. This powerful combination allows you to quickly find the very latest SEO information before the rest of the web. If you are not sure what Usenet actually is, there is a great Usenet guide out there to help you understand it!

Social Media

My third and final suggestion is social media.  Okay, there is a lot of trash info on there too, but focus your following on high brand reputable SEO resources, chances are you will see at least three or four interesting SEO topics every single day which may help improve your SEO campaigns.

These three information sources are often overlooked, but they are all amazing ways to keep completely up to date on the latest SEO practices and information before everybody else gets to hear about it.

Staying at the Cutting Edge of SEO is a post from: Technshare

See images in a new light (Source: Google)

They say it is better to see once than to hear 100 times. That is why most websites make use of visuals at least to some extent.  There are also certain types of sites (stock photography sites or photography blogs) that CONSIST primarily of images. For such websites, ranking highly in Google Images is often the only way to get Web traffic.

In this post, I’m going to dwell on optimizing images for Google’s Image Search. And, let us begin with the most important issues.

Alt text

When posting an image to your site, create an alt text for it. What’s alt text? “Alt”stands for “alternative”, and it is basically the textual representation of your image. Search engines cannot read images, thus, they judge by the alt text to figure out what’s in your picture.

Alt text is intended for situations when the image on the page cannot be loaded (to give users an idea about your pic). It also benefits visually impaired people who use special programs to surf the Web, in which case the app will read out the alt text.

Be smart about your alt text. What does this mean? Say, there is a picture of the ocean that you took on the morning of November 4^th. So, instead of calling it “the pic I took on November 4^th“, call it “ocean view” or similar. Using your main keywords in the alt text is vital.

Context

The context in which your image stands is also of great importance. Google’s image bot is believed to first look at your alt text and then match it to the rest of the text on your page. Thus, make sure these are related.

A good illustration of the image-context connection would be this. Some time ago, I wrote a blog post on how to create killer landing pages. The post had 2 images, one of which had an alt text that read “convertible airplane landing”, and the other one was called “landing page scheme”. Now, when I look up “landing page scheme” on Google Images, I get both images in the search results:

As you see, both images rank for this key phrase. This means Google DOES use context to decide what picture is relevant for the query.

Image URL

You probably know about the importance of having an SEO-friendly URL structure on your site. What I’m talking about is that, instead of having dynamic URLs that look something like this:

www.example.com/showitem.php?category=34&item=146,

it’s better to create static URLs that look something like this:

swww.example.com/kitchenware/electric-kettle.html

Same is recommended for image URLs. An SEO-friendly image URL would be:

example.com/books/science-fiction/citizen-of-the-galaxy.jpg

Many SEO’s believe that Google also looks at your image URL to determine whether your picture is relevant for a particular keyword.

Image size

There is no ideal image size described anywhere in Google’s Guideline. However, it’s been noticed, that images sized from 300×200 to 1200×900 pixels tend to perform the best. The general rule that applies here is that the image should be neither too big, nor too small, otherwise Google will consider them inconvenient for the users to view.

Besides, as far as the image’s width and height is concerned, 4:3 is considered to be the optimum ratio, since, if you look at an average Google Images results page, most images will be 4:3. If your image is, like, 5:1, Google will most likely crop it to display in the SERPs.

Indexing

Another important thing to do is to make sure that your picture is not restricted from indexing with a robots.txt file or similar. Also, the more often you upload new images to your site, the more frequently Google image bot will stop by.

It also helps to add your images to the XML sitemap. This way they will get indexed faster and will not be overlooked by the search engines.

Internal and external linking

Ok, let us clear up what you are supposed to do in regards to linking from and to your images. As far as internal linking is concerned, it definitely helps to link your images to other pages on your site (just as it is the case with interlinking webpages). For instance, you can link your image to your picture gallery. While doing that, pay attention to the image’s title (it kind of works like an anchor text, but does not have that much of an impact).

As for external linking, Google does not seem to rely on incoming links to your picture as much as it relies on backlinks when ranking webpages. To get an idea about your image’s authority, Google reportedly looks at something we’re just about to discuss – hotlinks.

To allow or to disallow hotlinking?

Hotlinking is linking to somebody else’s content, so that the users visiting your site can load the piece of content DIRECTLY from the original poster’s server. For example, if you embed a YouTube video on your blog, the video itself will be located on a YouTube server, while it will be possible to view it without leaving your blog. All in all, hotlinking is considered unethical, as it steals one’s bandwidth.

Benefits

Images get hotlinked a lot. But, although hotlinking may appear evil, in the case of images it does have certain benefits. If you watermark your images, each hotlink will also serve to promote your site/brand. In addition, as I said earlier, Google seems to take hotlinks into account while ranking images in the SERPs.

Risks

In some situation, however, hotlinking may have a DETRIMENTAL EFFECT on your site and image rankings. For example, if your image is big and gets hotlinked many times, this may lead to a major bandwidth leek, and you’d definitely not want that to happen.

Besides, when Google sees many hotlinks to one and the same image, it has to decide which one of them to represent in the search results. It may even consider a hotlink sitting on somebody else’s site more relevant than your original picture, if it finds that site’s content keyword-richer or more relevant than yours.

Another possible risk is that, if the safe search filter (meant to close off adult and some other content) is applied to some site that hotlinks to your picture, the same filter will get applied to your image as well.

That said, when deciding on your hotlinking policy, weigh all the pros and cons as applied to your site. (1) Check your access logs and see if hotlinks are taking up too much of your bandwidth. (2) Check your rankings and see if anybody else is outranking you for YOUR images in the SERPs. (3) Make sure no safe search filter is applied to your pics.

And, if none of the points I’ve just mentioned hold true for your site, you may as well allow hotlinking. Just make sure Google’s bot requests for images are not blocked as part of the collateral damage.

>Bonus tip – stand out of the crowd!

Ok, one thing I’d like to leave you with is my idea of how you can conduct some competition research (probably prior to your Image Search SEO campaign) in regards to images. Look up your main keywords on Google Images and see how you could make your images stand out. Consider the following example below:

An outstanding image means more clicks and (as many SEO’s believe) higher rankings in the Image SERPs.

Know some other Images SEO master tricks? Do share!

Google Image Search: How to SEO-Optimize Images to Get Higher Rankings is a post from: Technshare

Boost Your Ranking (Photo: dannysullivan)

Google is the No.1 Search Engine without any doubt, but are you spending time to increase your search ranking on Google?  In my experience, many blogs get 75%+ of their niche traffic from Google Organic Search.  This is critical to understand how to maximize and get the most of it.  Here are some easy ways to increase your Google search ranking:

Page Rank

Page Rank plays a very important role on Google’s search ranking. Start by checking your website page rank on Prchecker.info.  You need to take care of your Page Rank.  By achieving a minimum of Page Rank (PR) 3, you’ll be ahead of most sites.  As a point of reference Technshare.com is a PR4 site.  The following will help with page rank.

Quality Content

Write quality and unique content.  Don’t try to write for the search engine; instead write for your readers.  By mixing good content with good keywords and images – good organic results will follow.  Try to write lengthy,  minimum 400+ word articles.

Quality Back links

When you receive a back links you get the benefit of more traffic from that link as well as a better search ranking.  Try to get quality back links from industry leading sites that have a high PR.  Blog commenting and guest posting are just 2 ways support this approach.   You must be living under a rock if you haven’t realized that this website encourages everyone to write a guest post and will help you leverage its PR4.

Do Keyword Research 

Keyword Research is very important to get a steady stream of traffic from Google.  Focus your attention on the long tail – that is low competition keywords.  I stick to keywords that related to my niche using Google keyword Tool.

Use On-Page SEO

On page SEO is the process of optimizing the content of your website. This includes the text, images and links on your website. Use below tips to write Search engine friendly articles.

• Use H1,H2,H3 tags
• Your main keyword must be placed in the title tag 2 times
• Your main keyword must be placed in your meta description 2 times
• Your main keyword phrase must appear in the in H1, H2 and H3 Tags
• Italic, bold your main keywords (but don’t go crazy)
• Use alt tags for images
• Write lengthy article

 Submit Your Sitemap 

Create a site map that tells people where everything is on your site.  Use Google Webmaster tools to submit your sitemap to Google. WordPress users are able to use a simple WordPress plugin that called as “Google XML sitemaps.”

Blog Promotion

Promotion is very important to attract traffic to your blog.  I prefer to focus on article marketing. Article Marketing works well to  boost Google search ranking fast for me.  Here are a couple of last tips to promote your blog:

• Write Articles On Article Directories
• Submit Your Articles To Social Bookmarking Sites
• Comment On Do follow blog in Your Niche
• Join Forum Discussions

Golden Ways To Increase Your Google Search Ranking is a post from: Technshare

Source: Flickr

This article highlights 50 ways to get more traffic to your site.  It should be used as a starting point when you have hit a wall and are looking for more ways to promote your site.  The idea is not to use all of them, but to experiment and find out what works best for you.

#1 – High quality, unique content.

#2 – Keep adding content.

#3 – Memorable domain name.

#4 –Easy to read domain name.

#5 – Keywords in image files.

#6 – Serious keyword research.

#7 – Improve page titles.

#8 – Organic SEO.

#9 – Submit to directories.

#10 – Submit to niche directories.

#11 – Article distribution.

#12 – Write articles for other sites.

#13 – Submit articles to newsletters.

#14 – Keywords in online profiles.

#15 – One way links.

#16 – Invite others to publish content.

#17 – Newsletter publication.

#18 – Newsletter directories.

#19 – Write testimonials.

#20 – Be helpful in forums.

#21 – Post free ads in forums.

#22 – Be helpful in discussion lists.

#23 – Keyword rich press releases.

#24 – Create a lively blog.

#25 – Blog RSS feeds.

#26 – RSS to email.

#27 – Remove broken links.

#28 – Podcasting.

#29 – Use reliable hosting.

#30 – Tweak internal linking.

#31 – Chase new fads and hot topics.

#32 – Chase new affiliate programs.

#33 – Analyze your logs.

#34 – Join business associations.

#35 – Add a forum to your site.

#36 – Write free reports or white papers.

#37 – Write brandable reports.

#38 – Submit to ebook directories.

#39 – Offer to be a columnist.

#40 – Offer to moderate part of a forum.

#41 – Do something funny.

#42 – Be outrageous or controversial.

#43 – Tag your blog.

#44 – Newspaper websites.

#46 – Upload and tag your photos.

#47 – Syndicate your material.

#48 – Position yourself as an expert.

#49 – Try offline advertising.

#50 – Place a link in Yahoo! Answers.

Bonus tip #1 Submit your articles to Technshare.com.  It worked for me

Bonus tip #2 – Get free publicity online.

Bonus tip #3 – Remember your other websites.

If you need help with a particular item, try searching for it on this site or ask a question below.

Enjoy!

50 Ways to Get Traffic To Your Site is a post from: Technshare

Source: Flickr

Have you heard about the art of article spinning? In short, article spinning is a search engine optimization technique by changing an existing article around to have it read differently in hopes that the search engine won’t detect the duplicate content.

I know many internet marketers who run multiple blogs. Believe me, coming up with new articles everyday just so you can keep your blog updated is no easy task. For a change, hiring a blog ghost writer seems like the easiest alternative to rely upon but reluctant as they may be to pay for hiring one, they are often resolved to ‘cutting-corners’ by distributing articles or post that are spun.

Articles that are spun most often convey the same message from the previous one but with certain alterations made. I would call it a ‘disguise’ as you are presenting nothing new to your readers. You would spin your articles using all of the content similarly but in a different format each time.   Take for example:

“That big dog”

“That enormous dog”

“That huge canine”

Even though I do not condemn such an act, and even thou it has its share of benefits, I believe aspired bloggers should never aspire to recycling ‘duplicate’ content.  When you distribute articles and acknowledge your responsibility as a trusted blogger, you should always provide your readers with the latest information on topic that relates to what you have to share. Take a moment to think about it. There is already numerous regurgitated articles and subsequently, this will not set you apart from your competition.

The search engines, especially Google, dislike such acts. We all know that Google prides itself for being the best search engine available and relevancy matters to them. Google always strives to provide the best up-to-date information for their end-users. Therefore, if you continue spinning your articles, there will see it as second-rate content and subsequently, your ranks will not sit at a desirable level.

Coming up with fresh new content for your blog is not very difficult.  What it takes is someone who stays updated on the latest news and information.  Focus on information that your readers will be able to use and understand.  Not only will you be able to grow your business exponentially as compared to your competition, you’ll build and earn yourself a credible reputation as a trustworthy expert in the field of your niche.

Believe it or not, if you think that spinning articles will safe you much time as compared with coming up new ones, the truth is, they are actually very time consuming. Imagine having to ‘re-write’ content that has been rewritten 5 times before making each new post unique.  It is very prone to grammatical errors unless you have a high proficiency in the English language.  Spinning a bad article will only make it worse.

Spinning articles are really not encouraged, even though I at times use them.  We should always put ourselves in the shoes of the reader. Do not ‘write’ because you have to. Write with purpose, whether to inform, educate or entertain.  Readers will reward you for your efforts . . . not to mention the search engines.

Have you spun an article before?  Let us know about it in the comments below.

Is Spinning Your Articles an Act of Internet Marketing Crime? is a post from: Technshare

Becoming an expert at link bait campaigns can be overwhelming if you don’t know where to begin. Link bait campaigns are content driven campaigns by which you create content that others find interesting and they create a link back to your content on their website, blog or social media platforms.

There are however, several resources that you can use to enhance your link bait skills. By utilizing these resources you will become link bait expert in no time.

Search Engine Land

Search engine land is one of the most authority SEO site and also a great resource for those new to link bait campaigns. It will walk you through link baiting and offers some great illustrations to use for reference. The pictures and diagrams make link baiting easy to understand.

Kiss Metrics Blog

Kiss metrics is an excellent resource when you want a step-by-step walk through the link baiting process. Their diagram explains every step of the process in a very easy and user friendly format. It is probably one of the most comprehensive yet easy to understand explanations out there.

SEOmoz

SEOmoz is one of the leaders when it comes to SEO knowledge. Now they are showing everyone how easy it is to link bait. Rand Fishkin is an expert in the SEO world and people from all over the world follow what they have to say.

SEO Book

This is a really informative article on link bait. SEO Book is considered a major resource and is followed by many. This article is a great one for those just getting in to developing link bait.

Search Engine Journal

This article is great one that covers the basics of link bait. It expresses how important establishing yourself as an expert is your niche can be to your link bait campaign.

Distilled

This is one of the most comprehensive guides out there on the topic of link bait. They even offer a great13 page PDF on Link Bait Brainstorming to assist you in developing the best link bait campaign possible. This is one to watch.

Acquisition Engine

If you are looking for examples of effective link bait campaigns then this is a great resource. With over 18 examples of successful and viral link bait content, you will have a better understanding of what you need when it comes to your link bait campaign.

Outspoken Media

This is a great article on the direction the link bait is taking. It’s a great educational article.

Jim Westerngren

If you’re looking for some great tips on what you need to do. Jim has compiled a list that is sure to help you create some great viral content.

Matt Cutts

Matt Cutt’s is on the cutting edge when it comes to SEO and link bait. His knowledge in these areas is some of best advice and tips you can go by when it comes to building link bait content.
Link bait doesn’t have to be something that you fear. As with anything it just takes some research and some practice to master your craft. Link bait is a great way to gain exposure and when done properly can make you the expert that everyone turns to.

——————-

Jeff is an internet marketing consultant and a part time blogger. He shares his experience about how to get the most out of your blog. Jeff is also a consultant and content contributor for Queens condominiums community.

11 Resources and Ways to Improve Your Link Baiting Skills is a post from: Technshare

I know how much it hurts when you find someone saying bad things about you or your business. Any kind of negative publicity can be fatal for online businesses where criticism or negative remarks can throw you out of the market in a heartbeat. With increased global connectivity, the role of negative publicity has become more devastating than ever. Your competitors spread rumors about you. Because of our love for gossip, these rumors easily become the top result of an important search engine, costing you many customers.

Many online businesses develop working relationships with their customers to tackle negative publicity and build credibility along the way. Some even hire a public relation team to deal with the effects of negative publicity from time to time. SEO is also a frequently used technique which is becoming increasingly popular. No one can deny its importance in online world but none of us can think it can also be used as a viable tool to bury the effects of negative publicity. Until now, that is!

I was once searching to check my SERPs on Google and I found a link with a negative comment about my business which was appalling as it was on the first page of my search. Ouch! It hurt me badly but I dealt with this with two SEO techniques. If you are also facing heavy negative comments that are damaging your online reputation, follow 2 useful SEO techniques:

Content creation

First of all, try using some analytical tools as they will let you know exactly which sites and pages contain bad reviews about you. Then investigate appropriate keywords that are responsible for ranking these reviews in the SERPs. Mostly the keywords are your domain, company or even your personal name but you can also check others by typing something that relates or is important to your business. Once you identify the keywords, you can begin the work.

Then write valuable content against these keywords and submit them on high homepage PageRank websites like Word Press, Ezine Articles, Tumblr, TypePad, Squidoo and others. These sites work really well and sometimes give extra SEO weight to you. Generate backlinks to increase the ranking of your content and post them on various directories. This will knock off the negative reviews and prevent them from ever getting on to the first page.

Participation in forums

Participating in forums can become a key to your survival if negative publicity is hitting your business badly. Only positive comments can nullify the effects of negative comments. Ask your customers and peers to join online communities and forums and leave positive comments about your business. You cannot force a customer to do so yet if you have a large pool of happy customers, they will surely do it for you without any incentive. You can request them to write testimonials which you can post on different sites. People mostly conclude a positive image of a business if they find more good reviews as compared to the negative ones.

So if you are facing severe negative publicity, complaining to Google does not make any sense. Just fight it using SEO techniques and remain at the top!

Two biggest SEO techniques to overcome negative publicity is a post from: Technshare